BYD took the global EV crown. Now Chinese rivals and local startups are taking over emerging markets.
- Tesla’s sales are dropping globally, with political headwinds and fierce EV rivals throwing up challenges.
- New frontiers beckon, but Tesla faces a showdown with savvy local and Chinese competitors vying for dominance.
- Pricing battles and rapid innovation are putting Tesla to the test, demanding a strategic jolt to regain its edge.
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Tesla hasn’t lost it in 2025, but much earlier.
For example, when they stopped maintaining and improving their successful Model 3 and Model Y, because the ugly tinbox “needed” all research and development resources.
This is exactly it. Instead of focusing on refining and renewing their products, Tesla burned billions on self-driving, while simultaneously hamstringing themselves by removing radar and lidar. That’s before the cybertruck and roadster 2 interfered.
Lucid, from what I can tell, has done this work. Their new motors are the size of a carryon. The interior volume is enormous. That’s what the flagships should be like at Tesla, but they screwed up.
Excuse me. It’s the best looking dumpster on the road.
I’ll say it happen when Musk got involved with production as he thought he will disrupt manufacturing by heavily relying in automation, disregarding what every manufacturing expert had told him that it ain’t that easy.
He fumbled the ball hard and IMO that was the beginning of the end of Tesla’s hegemony, where they started making serious quality mistakes and dropped finishing quality as well.
That said, I’m not sure if they ever had any to begin with, but for a while customers valued that brand very highly, even being on waiting lists for months.
To me, this was the Jets’ Butt Fumble of car manufacturing.
For sure.
A Model 3 from early 2024 really feels 5-10 years behind a 2026 Kia or Hyundai at this point.
They lost the plot big time somewhere around mid-2022 I think. Would be interesting to learn if Elon started some new designer drug or something around then.
“Political headwinds” is putting it mildly.
Poor Elon simply gave his heart and love to the world by raising his right arm at a 45° angle after tapping his left boob. He did nazi anything wrong with that.
The excuse his enablers give is absurd. Ask yourself what’s worse: give a Nazi salute on TV or doing a gesture the entire world knows as a Nazi salute on TV and not realizing it? They’re both bad enough that he shouldn’t be in charge of a lemonade stand.
Anyone arguing that Musk didn’t know exactly what he was doing is just another Nazi pissing in the wind and deserves every bit of blow back they get.
The only thing Musk didn’t understand is that he was branding himself and everything he touches as nothing more than Nazi scum for the rest of his miserable life.
I firmly believe he was doing it for the lulz. It totally fits his MO, and it’ll be hard to convince me otherwise.
However, that doesn’t mean he gets a pass. We shouldn’t have childish people in positions of power, so his actions should disqualify him from any influence in the White House.
I think it’s exactly the opposite and there’s lots of information and multple interviews that strongly suggest that. IMO Musk is full-on Nazi scum and lives in a nearly impermeable bubble, so much so that he thinks he has toned it down to what will pass in society. It seems he read the room wrong either way.
BYD was always going to pass Tesla, Elon’s actions just accelerated the timeline
The most financially destructive edgelord Zieg Heil in history.
Yeah no I’m not switching out reliance on US cloud services with … Chinese.
Replaced my Tesla with a Volkswagen ID.7. Recommended.
Tourer?
Vws are overpriced and a bit lackluster these days, I got a KIA.
Does your car have an annoying warning about the rules of the road when you start it, that requires a button press to confirm?
The VW ID.7 is about the same cost as a Tesla Model 3 and its size and features are more like the Model S. I was early so I have the sedan, a friend has the tourer though and loves it.
No such warning, at least not here in Sweden/Europe.
I looked at the Kia EV9 but it was a lot more expensive, also, we didn’t get the swivel seats here. They had to be bolted stuck in forward position :(
I’m in Europe too, the notification is so annoying it requires a touch of the screen to confirm acknowledgement of the careful driving or some such bs. Mine is only a Niro, but it is lovely and quite roomy. Costs 45k here in Ireland.
If I went VW it would be ID7. I think some of the established brands like VW and Toyota let their internal design slack in recent times, I’d be happy to se they have corrected course.
often times if you ask a service manager at a dealership, they are able to disable such warning screens, you might have to sign a legal waiver for it.
Yeah the ID.7 is the first on VWs “new platform”. IIRC they’re going to refresh the other models now too.
Going from Tesla to VW was very refreshing. To start with it’s now possible to trust the expected range given. The Tesla lied its heart out.
Honestly just in terms of performance the Tesla beats out vw. the performance model at 50k USD gets a sub 3 second 0 to 60. Biggest issue is that it’s not in the states yet
Absolutely. The Model 3 was fun to drive in a carting way. The ID.7 is comfortable to drive long distances in.
Yeah, except it’s no fun to drive when it’s in the shop.
I had a 99 Jetta that was a rolling trash bag. I also worked valet where I drove Audis and BMWs. I wouldn’t take a German car even if it was free. For me the best cars I’ve owned have been Hondas. I had 2 civics and an accord that were 🤌
Because the CEO “sent his heart out to the world”. Ain’t no coming back from that public perception, tbh.
I heard the next model, the Tesla SS, with innovative features like doing Nazi salutes out the windows to indicate is going to be a huge hit.
“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”
Tbh, that would have been extremely simple to come back from: Fire his ass. The issue is that they didn’t.
(Inb4 someone says they cannot fire him for some legal or contract reason: That is a major red flag in and of itself)
The article should just be “This Guy” followed by photos of Elon doing his thing for the last year or so.
Turns out people want cars they can afford. Crazy stuff
BYD is eating everyone’s lunch at the bottom not just Tesla.
Tesla could have prospered by sticking to the mid range but their build quality is appalling even for a lower mid car.
Couple that with some truly dumb design ideas from Elon (no lidar, no physical buttons, indicators as buttons, stupidly high repair bills due to design choices) and some even more stupid personal behaviors from him and he has just cut the legs out of his market.
EV buyers who are spending more money care about this kind of thing, budget buyers it is mostly about price.
BYD is eating everyone’s lunch at the bottom not just Tesla.
It’s not just BYD. SAIC (whose main international brand is MG) isn’t far behind, Chery (whose main brands are Omoda and Jaecoo) are starting to get about too, and there are myriad smaller Chinese marques.
Chinese cars in general are really hitting the market hard.
Exactly. I’m a budget buyer and Tesla doesn’t make sense. My parents are luxury buyers and Tesla doesn’t make sense. My coworkers buy Tesla, so I guess there’s a market, but the reason they bought doesn’t hold up as well today.
We’ll see what Tesla does, but I think they need to kick out Musk to get there.
Couple that with some truly dumb design ideas from Elon (no lidar, no physical buttons, indicators as buttons, stupidly high repair bills due to design choices) and some even more stupid personal behaviors from him and he has just cut the legs out of his market.
Well, some of these dumb design ideas are not really from Elon and it is not that other car manufacturer are too much different…
Which ones aren’t? Also deciding to copy dumb ideas from elsewhere is even more dumb as someone else did the alpha testing for you, showed it was dumb, and you still copied it.
I forgot the yoke instead of a wheel. That’s another Elon special.
Buttons for indicators I know are on modern ferraris, I can’t afford one but I still wouldn’t buy one because of them. Try using buttons on a steering wheel when doing a right at a roundabout, just the dumbest shit.
Which ones aren’t? Also deciding to copy dumb ideas from elsewhere is even more dumb as someone else did the alpha testing for you, showed it was dumb, and you still copied it.
You don’t copy because you think it is a good idea, you copy because everyone did the same thing. If everyone start putting touch button on cars and you not, you will be seen as old. Even if the idea is stupid, it is the hot new idea of the day. Also putting touch screen is cheaper to build and update since in the end the physical button just send a signal to one of the various ECUs on the car anyway.
Buttons for indicators I know are on modern ferraris, I can’t afford one but I still wouldn’t buy one because of them.
Leaving Ferraris aside, it is not that a button as indicators is always a bad idea. What is a stupid idea is to put a touch button without tactile feedback, so you need to look to see if you have pressed it or not.
Try using buttons on a steering wheel when doing a right at a roundabout, just the dumbest shit.
Well, my Renault has some buttons on the steering wheel and it do not seems too bad to use them while driving, I find very convenient to be able to control something without moving my hands from it (ok, they are not touch button).
A car I drove some months ago had double commands: touch ones and physical buttons. Not bad as choice.
If the owner of the company wasn’t trying to heil a cab on the national stage, people wouldn’t be doubting these EVs nearly as much.
Not that they’re particularly high quality anyway.
Back in the day, Tesla was releasing some of its tech without patent licenses to help other EV makers catch up, to help the environment. Or at least that’s what I remember from the PR.
Back then they wanted to blow their lead so electric cars would do better in general.
.Back then they wanted to blow their lead so electric cars would do better in general.
First-mover advantage wasn’t going to be lost in the near-term due to patent-sharing.
“How Tesla blew its load”
Even if it weren’t for all the political stuff Tesla’s are just not very good cars, combined with a truly awful customer service experience.
I have no idea what BYD’s customer service experiences like but the fact that the cars seem to have actually gone through some kind of QA means that they can only be an improvement
True, I can’t imagine buying a used Tesla knowing that I’d still have to make monthly payments to keep some features.
I’m honestly surprised there isn’t a jailbreak community that completely replaces the Tesla OS with something else.
Some asshole bought the company when it had innovative tech and good quality, and hasn’t had the focus to address the inevitable quality issues that come with scaling up production.
Oh & OpenPilot/Comma-AI is an alternative to Tesla’s “auto-pilot”
The problem is that Chinese EVs builder are heavily subsidized from the state and Tesla not (or not to that amount). Also a Tesla has a tag price that put it in the medium-high range, and it is obvious that the biggest market is for low-medium range priced car.
Eh. Both received subsidies. No one is a saint
Sure, but the scale is way different.
I agree.
The point is how much subsidies they receive. Chinese automakers seems to get way more (up to 30% if not more of the cost) than Tesla. That way it is easy to win on competitors.BTW, the 30% is not a personal educated guest, it is the estimated figure given by a very trustworthy economic journal which did an investigation and discovered that that some chinese automaker could probably absorb a 30% tariffs without changing the selling price.
Got a link to the journal?
